07/21/16

Trump’s Political Assassination Attempt: Cruz Stays True to His Principles, Freedom and the Constitution

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

I watched Ted Cruz’s speech last night. It was the only part of the entire GOP Convention that I care to witness. His speech was fantastic and presidential, regardless of what you are hearing out there today. Cruz honored the fallen police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. He spoke of freedom and the Constitution. He told people to vote their conscience and refused to endorse Donald Trump. And for the record, Rubio and Ryan did not endorse either.

Last night I witnessed something I had never seen before in politics in my lifetime… an attempted political assassination within the Republican Party. Donald Trump set that whole thing up last night. It was Russianesque and it was pure Manafort. Did you know that Paul Manafort pulled this tactic against Ronald Reagan in 1976? It wasn’t as thuggish or violent, but he did it then too. And Reagan did not endorse Gerald Ford either.

Per The Resurgent:

Multiple press outlets are confirming what I first reported from Cruz sources. Manafort did threaten Cruz that if he did not change his speech the crowd would boo. Cruz refused and Manafort organized delegates to boo Cruz. They booed before Cruz had even finished a sentence that might have included a endorsement.

They even booed Cruz saying “God bless America.”

And more…

Still, Ted Cruz defied Cheeto Jesus and his Kremlin subsidized thugs. And yes, they are Kremlin subsidized thugs.

Cruz, for his part, went on stage, congratulated Donald Trump, told the voters to vote their conscience, and to vote up and down the ballot for conservatives who will support the constitution. Given the Trump reaction to Cruz’s speech, they must not view Trump as a conservative who will support the constitution.

Make no mistake about it, Ted Cruz gave the strongest defense of conservatism in Cleveland. He stuck to his guns, set the vision of the GOP, and defended the party of Lincoln and Reagan. For that, he was booed and his wife was nearly lynched by a bunch of goons organized by the Trump campaign. And it was organized by the Trump campaign.

Ted Cruz will be remembered fondly by history for standing up for conviction and principle and defying Cheeto Jesus and his merry lynch mob of alt-right unprincipled racists and whores who have taken over the GOP.

Trump knew well in advance exactly what was in Ted Cruz’s speech. He knew two days before last night that Cruz would not endorse him. He did his level best to set Cruz up to make him look bad and destroy his future political career. It didn’t work.

Conservative Review:

The easy thing to do, since Cruz withheld his endorsement, would have been to sit the convention out. Or send in a video message. That’s what many other high-profile Republicans — former GOP presidents, governors, senators and congressman — chose to do. Cruz did not choose the comfortable route. He did not opt to simply go on stage and, like so many other speakers, bash Hillary Clinton for the entirety of his remarks, either.

Cruz started off by congratulating Donald Trump on his nomination. That was gracious considering the lies Trump spread about his wife, his father and himself. He took dead aim at Hillary Clinton as well. He closed by calling on voters to vote their conscience and not stay home in November. For extolling freedom and the Constitution, and for not kneeling before a vile, evil and twisted man, Trump had his minions boo Cruz because he would not endorse the orange one. They did not boo him off the stage as reported. They did not stop Cruz from finishing his speech and standing his ground, even though he was called calculating and a coward.

What did happen on the way out though, was that one of Trump’s delegates tried to physically assault Ted Cruz. Heidi Cruz was being jeered and threatened and had to be ushered out with heavy security. The Thuggees of the GOP were in full force last night. They were being led by Paul Manafort who was actively in the ranks getting delegates to boo at Cruz. The whole thing was planned and orchestrated by Donald Trump weeks in advance. It is the most shameful thing I have ever seen. His well dressed and groomed family did not applaud Cruz once – they applauded when he was booed. All of them are scum as far as I am concerned.

The media and Trump’s minions are in full lying mode today claiming Cruz was booed off the stage and that he was using dead cops to build his political career. Those are vicious lies. Cruz did not speak of himself once last night. He knew that what he would say would not be welcomed or be popular… he did it anyway. He stood by his principles and reached out to a broken nation.

Trump entered in grand fashion as Cruz was booed… egging the crowd on and giving the thumb’s up. These are the actions of a dictator in the making. If he will pull this against a man of honor, a rival such as Ted Cruz, just imagine what he will do if elected.

From Ben Shapiro:

Trump has now tweeted out a slap at Cruz: “Ted Cruz booed off the stage, didn’t honor the pledge! I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!” Sean Spicer of the pathetic Republican National Convention said that he was “hoping for better,” even though the text was pre-screened. Donald Trump Jr. appeared with Sean Hannity to exclaim, “The best unity I saw was everyone booing [Cruz] off the stage.”

Back in March Trump rescinded his pledge to back the Republican nominee. Remember that? Well, he’s lying about last night too. In fact, as the real author of the Art of the Deal has pointed out, Trump is a narcissist and a pathological liar that can’t be trusted.

More from Ben Shapiro:

According to the source, the entire Cruz speech was cleared by the Trump campaign. Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, expressly approved the speech at 4:30 PM ET. The source, who was standing on the convention floor at the time of the speech, said that Trump operatives were present, urging the crowd to boo. “This was orchestrated by the Trump campaign to make Senator Cruz a pariah within the party,” said the source.

“We made this arrangement weeks ago regarding the speech,” the source continued. “We said we wouldn’t cause trouble with the delegates, that Senator Cruz would give a speech, that Senator Cruz would not endorse. They agreed to that. That was always the deal. They saw the speech beforehand and knew what Senator Cruz would be saying. They offered no pushback on the speech whatsoever.”

In fact, the source added, a few hours before the speech, the Trump campaign had been in negotiations with Cruz for Cruz to play a larger role in the campaign, including advising on Israel policy. Minutes after the speech ended, the source noted, the Trump campaign instantly informed them that the offer had been withdrawn.

“Senator Cruz was a little surprised by the depth of the boos,” the source said. “Donors have been emailing, declaring that he’s dead, that it’s the end of his political career.

“But I don’t think this is all going to play out the way Donald Trump thinks it will.”

Everything Cruz said was right and true. It is what we should be listening to… not populism.

I had said during Chris Christie’s speech that although I agree Clinton is a criminal and should go to prison, I was disturbed by the tone whipped up calling her ‘guilty’ just like a lynch mob would. Then there is the delegate in New Hampshire that says she should be shot for treason. The Secret Service is investigating him. That seems to be the norm for the nationalist/populists that kneel at the alter of Trump. They are violent bullies. Last night was a testament to that.

Trump is now saying that he will honor the Iran deal. His new treasury pick is a Goldman Sachs guy. He took yet another stance against NATO and supported Russia once more. Mike Pence is also a waste of breath – he is more of a friend of China’s than ours. Kasich allegedly turned down the VP slot with Trump even though he was offered both foreign and national policy. I don’t care for Kasich… he’s too Progressive for my tastes, but at least he has a set and a shred of integrity.

I am through with the Republican Party. I am now more against Trump than ever before. Every time he talks to his sycophants, I can feel my IQ bleeding out my eyes. I can’t take the lies and the constant shifting on political stances. I can’t take the obvious obeisance to our enemies. This is GOP suicide and I won’t be a part of it. You won’t convince me to change my mind and shame on anyone who follows this man. You will one day bitterly regret what you are doing.

I stand with Ted Cruz and those who oppose Donald Trump. I stand with freedom, the Constitution and our Founding Fathers. And I stand by my principles. I stand against Trump and his nationalist populists and I stand against the RINOs and Progressives. The GOP is dead to me. There is a massive split coming in the Conservative movement and you will find me with the constitutionalists.

Here is the full transcript of Ted Cruz’s speech via Conservative Review:

Thank you. Heidi and I are honored to join you here in Cleveland, where Lebron James just led an incredible comeback victory. I’m convinced America is going to come back too.

I congratulate Donald Trump on winning the nomination last night.

Conventions are times of excitement. But given the events of the last few weeks, I hope you’ll allow me a moment to talk to you about what’s really at stake.

Just two weeks ago, a nine-year-old girl named Caroline was having a carefree Texas summer – swimming in the pool, playing with friends, doing all the things a happy child might do.

Like most children, she took for granted the love she received from her mom, Heidi, and her dad, a police sergeant named Michael Smith. That is, until he became one of the five police officers gunned down in Dallas.

The day her father was murdered, Caroline gave him a hug and kiss as he left for work. But as they parted, her dad asked her something he hadn’t asked before:

“What if this is the last time you ever kiss or hug me?'”

Later, as she thought of her fallen father, and that last heartbreaking hug, Caroline broke down in tears. How could anything ever be OK again?

Michael Smith was a former Army ranger who spent three decades with the Dallas Police Department. I have no idea who he voted for in the last election, or what he thought about this one. But his life was a testament to devotion. He protected the very protestors who mocked him because he loved his country and his fellow man. His work gave new meaning to that line from literature, “To die of love is to live by it.”

As I thought about what I wanted to say tonight, Michael Smith’s story weighed on my heart. Maybe that’s because his daughter, Caroline, is about the same age as my eldest daughter and happens to share the same name. Maybe it’s because I saw a video of that dear, sweet child choking back sobs as she remembered her daddy’s last question to her. Maybe it’s because we live in a world where so many others have had their lives destroyed by evil, in places like Orlando and Paris and Nice and Baton Rouge. Maybe it is because of the simple question itself:

What if this, right now, is our last time? Our last moment to do something for our families and our country?

Did we live up to our values? Did we do all we could?

That’s really what elections should be about. That’s why you and millions like you devoted so much time and sacrifice to this campaign.

We’re fighting, not for one particular candidate or one campaign, but because

each of us wants to be able to tell our kids and grandkids, our own Carolines, that we did our best for their future, and for our country.

America is more than just a land mass between two oceans. America is an idea, a simple yet powerful idea: freedom matters.

For much of human history, government power has been the unavoidable constant in life – government decrees, and the people obey.

Not here. We have no king or queen. No dictator. We the People constrain government.

Our nation is exceptional because it was built on the five most powerful words in the English language: I want to be free.

Never has that message been more needed than today.

We stand here tonight a nation divided. Partisan rancor, anger, even hatred are tearing America apart.

And citizens are furious—rightly furious—at a political establishment that cynically breaks its promises and ignores the will of the people.

We have to do better. We owe our fallen heroes more than that.

Of course, Obama and Clinton will tell you that they also care about our children’s future. And I want to believe them. But there is a profound difference in our two parties’ visions for the future.

Theirs is the party that thinks ISIS is a “JV team,” that responds to the death of Americans at Benghazi by asking, “What difference does it make?” That thinks

it’s possible to make a deal with Iran, which celebrates as holidays “Death to America Day” and “Death to Israel Day.”

My friends, this is madness.

President Obama is a man who does everything backwards – he wants to close Guantanamo Bay and open up our borders, he exports jobs and imports terrorists.

Enough is enough.

There is a better vision for our future: A return to freedom.

On education, your freedom to choose your child’s education, even if you aren’t as rich as Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

On healthcare, your freedom to choose your own doctor, without Obamacare.

On taxes, your freedom to provide for your family without the IRS beating down your door.

The Internet? Keep it free from taxes, free from regulation. And don’t give it away to Russia and China.

Freedom means free speech, not politically correct safe spaces.

Freedom means religious freedom, whether you are Christian or Jew, Muslim or atheist. Gay or straight, the Bill of Rights protects the rights of all of us to live according to our conscience.

Freedom means the right to keep and bear arms, and protect your family.

Freedom means Supreme Court Justices who don’t dictate policy, but instead follow the Constitution.

And freedom means recognizing that our Constitution allows states to choose policies that reflect local values. Colorado may decide something different than Texas. New York different than Iowa. Diversity. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. If not, what’s the point of having states to begin with?

Hillary Clinton believes government should make virtually every choice in your life. Education, healthcare, marriage, speech – all dictated out of Washington.

But something powerful is happening. We’ve seen it in both parties. We’ve seen it in the United Kingdom’s unprecedented Brexit vote to leave the European Union.

Voters are overwhelmingly rejecting big government. That’s a profound victory.

People are fed up with politicians who don’t listen to them, fed up with a corrupt system that benefits the elites, instead of working men and women.

We deserve an immigration system that puts America first. And yes, builds a wall to keep us safe.

That stops admitting ISIS terrorists as refugees.

We deserve trade policies that put the interests of American farmers and manufacturing jobs over the global interests funding the lobbyists.

And if we choose freedom, our future will be brighter.

Freedom will bring back jobs, raise wages.

Freedom will lift people out of dependency, to the dignity of work.

We can do this. 47 years ago today, America put a man on the moon. That’s the power of freedom.

Our party was founded to defeat slavery. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

We passed the Civil Rights Act, and fought to eliminate Jim Crow laws.

Those were fights for freedom, and so is this.

Sergeant Michael Smith stood up to protect our freedom.

So do our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines fighting radical Islamic terrorism.

So did the family of Alton Sterling, who bravely called to end the violence.

So did the families of those murdered at the Charleston Emanuel AME church, who forgave that hateful, bigoted murderer.

And so can we.

We deserve leaders who stand for principle. Unite us all behind shared values. Cast aside anger for love. That is the standard we should expect, from everybody.

And to those listening, please, don’t stay home in November. Stand, and speak, and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution.

It’s love of freedom that has allowed millions to achieve their dreams. Like my Mom, the first in her family to go to college, and my Dad, who fled prison and torture in Cuba, coming to Texas with just $100 sewn into his underwear.

And it is love that I hope will bring comfort to a grieving 9-year-old girl in Dallas – and, God willing, propel her to move forward, and dream, and soar . . . and make her daddy proud.

We must make the most of our moment – to fight for freedom, to protect our God-given rights, even of those with whom we don’t agree, so that when we are old and gray . . . and our work is done . . . and we give those we love one final kiss goodbye . . . we will be able to say, “Freedom matters, and I was part of something beautiful.”

Thank you. And may God bless the United States of America.

07/18/16

What happened to the RNC’s corporate sponsors?

By: Renee Nal | New Zeal

Screenshot of Color of Change petition to corporations to “Stop sponsoring Donald Trump”

The Color of Change and CREDO are radical left organizations that have made it their mission to aggressively target any and all corporate sponsors of the Republican National Convention, warning them that their brands will be tarnished if they are perceived to support the presumptive nominee.

But in a seeming competition for the “bad behavior award,” the lack of corporate supporters in Cleveland prompted convention organizers to send an embarrassing (and phony) letter to Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson begging for money to cover costs.

The letter was leaked to the press.

It is unclear who leaked the letter to Politico, which claimed that numerous corporate sponsors backed out due to “negative publicity around our potential nominee.” But Politico found that many of the companies listed never pledged money to support the RNC in the first place. A spokeswoman for the Cleveland 2016 Host Committee, Emily Lauer, “acknowledged to POLITICO that the list of lost donors in the letter to Adelson was inaccurate — and that the committee has now reached out to Adelson’s aides to apologize.”

In sum, organizers of the Republican National Committee attempted to secure a shortfall of millions by blatantly lying to Sheldon Adelson in a letter that was leaked to Politico, who was able to quickly confirm that the companies who “pledged money” and bailed on the convention never pledged money at all. So, despite their support in previous years, corporate sponsors are evidently not interested in funding the potentially violent Republican National Convention this year.

Read more here…

07/18/16

Shut down the RNC!!! Communists conspire to create chaos in Cleveland

By: Trevor Loudon | New Zeal

Hardcore revolutionaries are working overtime to disrupt, even shut down, the Republican National Convention opening Monday in Cleveland.

Mmggdd

Unless Cleveland’s police are well prepared and resolute, the city’s streets could well see bloodletting and violence on a scale not seen since Chicago 1968. Given the recent spate of communist-driven and White House encouraged anti-police violence and the almost visceral hatred many on the left feel towards prospective Republican nominee Donald Trump, almost anything could happen. If City leaders don’t firmly stand behind their “thin blue line,” the radicals will try to turn Cleveland into a cauldron of hatred.

Tom Burke

Grand Rapids, Michigan based activist Tom Burke, one of the lead organizers of the Coalition to Stop Trump and March on the RNC, says the protest has two aims. “One is it helps to build movements in this country by tying local groups to national issues. Secondly, it has an impact on the elections because the media starts to cover what the protesters are saying. We have a very different agenda than the Republican Party — and this year, in particular.”

Mick Kelly

Mick Kelly, a co-leader of Coalition to Stop Trump and March on the RNC stated, “We plan on marching right up to the site of the RNC. We insist that our right to protest is respected. The people of this county are rejecting Trump and his racist, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim attacks.”

Both men are long time leaders of the neo-Maoist Freedom Road Socialist Organization/FightBack! One of the most militant groups in the country, Freedom Road has actively supported Marxist insurgencies in the Middle East and Latin America for decades and enjoys a close relationship with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a leading American Muslim Brotherhood front group.

Hassan Shibly CAIR left, Mick Kelly right, Tampa 2015

Both Burke and Kelly were among 23 mainly Chicago and Minneapolis based activists whose houses were raided in 2011, during an FBI crackdown on the Freedom Road Socialist Organization/FightBack! faction.

According to Tom Burke:

“Thousands of people are coming to the RNC to protest Trump. Buses are being chartered to come to this protest from as far away as Minnesota, and we plan on being within sight and sound of the RNC on July 18.”

About 40 immigrant rights, student, anti-war, labor and low-income organizations have announced their support for the protest. Almost all are front groups for Freedom Road or their allies, the pro-North Korea and Iran Workers World Party.

While Freedom Road and Workers World are leading the charge, almost every communist group in the country is likely to be involved. Cleveland is in easy driving distance of the communist strongholds of Detroit, Minneapolis and Chicago, and not too far from New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Freedom Road and Workers World are mobilizing their cadre from all over the Midwest; down to Durham, North Carolina; Tampa Bay and Tallahassee in Florida; and across to Salt Lake City, Utah.

The endorser list is growing and includes communist fronts such as Chicago based National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression; the Milwaukee Anti-War Committee; People’s Opposition to War, Imperialism and Racism; Students for a Democratic Society; the United Workers Organization of Wisconsin; the Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association; the United National Antiwar Coalition; and Muslims for Social Justice.

Many of the same organizers helped lead the mass marches that drew thousands at the 2008 RNC in Saint Paul, Minnesota and the 2012 RNC in Tampa, Florida. The protests in Cleveland are expected to be both much larger and more violent.

The demonstration will put forward the slogans:

“Dump Trump, Say No to the Republican Agenda. Stand Against Racist, Anti-Immigrant, and Anti-Muslim Attacks. We demand Peace, Justice and Equality.”

Tom Burke states:

“We have now applied for permits to march on the RNC and we insist that the permits are granted in a timely manner. We have a right to protest Trump and his racist, reactionary agenda, and that is exactly what we will do on the opening day of the Republican National Convention.”

Mick Kelly added:

“While the coalition wants permits to ensure the broadest participation in the protest, we will march permits or not.”

“We will have speakers representing a wide range of struggles — Black Lives Matter, Palestine and the Right to Return, Indigenous demands to scrap the racist mascot of the Cleveland baseball team, doctors marching a few days later against Islamophobia, justice for migrants, LGBTQ rights, Detroiters fighting foreclosure, and many more,” said Cleveland-based march organizer Susan Schnur. “We encourage people to bring signs and banners representing their own struggle against bigotry, economic injustice, and the capitalist system responsible for both.”

Susan Schnur

As Lydia Bayoneta, long time Rochester, NY activist and Workers World Party organizer explained:

“The racist onslaught of police terror in the United States is part of a worldwide mobilization of racist, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant and reactionary forces. In Cleveland, the eyes of the world will be focused not only on the reactionary forces, but also on the growing resistance within the U.S to racist police terror and all forms of oppression.”

At the 3,000 strong People’s Summit in Chicago last month, I interviewed more than a dozen communists from several parties. Most were looking to Cleveland. Several talked of the US being closer to revolution than any time since 1968. You could see the light of revolutionary fervor in their eyes. They saw Cleveland as a revolutionary opportunity of a lifetime.

God forbid that a Democrat-led city allows these people to live out their bloody fantasies.

Trevor Loudon is a New Zealand writer and speaker, currently living in the USA. Loudon is working on the soon-to-be-released documentary: The Enemies Within (see trailer here) and is the author of the 2013 book The Enemies Within: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the US Congress.

Contact Trevor Loudon at [email protected]

11/5/15

Ted Cruz on the Kelly File – Tax Plan

08/29/15

The Secret of Trump’s Success

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

“Go back to Univision” is how Donald Trump handled Mexican-American “journalist” Jorge Ramos when he tried to disrupt a Trump news conference. When Hillary Clinton compared Republicans to terrorists, the Republican National Committee asked for an apology. This contrast demonstrates why Trump is doing so well and the Republican Party, in general, is doing so poorly.

On the Megyn Kelly Fox News show on Thursday night, much was made of the fact that Hillary had made her comparison between Republicans and terrorists as she was looking at her notes. In other words, Kelly and her guest concluded, it was a deliberate insult. Of course it was. Why was this a surprise? Mrs. Clinton had returned to her roots as an Alinskyite, someone who demonizes her opponents as a deliberate strategy. Why can’t conservatives get it through their heads that Hillary is a committed leftist who can be just as good as Obama when it comes to poisoning the public discourse for political purposes?

Republican National Committee (RNC) Press Secretary Allison Moore said, “For Hillary Clinton to equate her political opponents to terrorists is a new low for her flailing campaign. She should apologize immediately for her inflammatory rhetoric.”

What is the point of such a statement? Does the RNC seriously believe Hillary will consider apologizing to Republicans? What the RNC should have said is that Hillary was back to using Alinskyite tactics, which she learned about in college, and that the use of such a strategy demonstrated her grounding in a form of Marxism. The RNC could have said that the American people have had enough of these divisive tactics from Obama, who has come close to inciting a race war in the United States, and that the public cannot tolerate another un-American presidency in which a top Democrat equates political opponents to foreign enemies.

As we argued more than two months ago, you have to study Marxism to understand Hillary. It is apparent the RNC hasn’t done its opposition research. Despite her love for money, Hillary is as much of a leftist as Barack Obama. She studied Alinsky in college and went to work as an intern for a law firm that employed communists. The best source of information on this is Hell to Pay, a book on Hillary by Barbara Olson, who told me in an interview in 2000 that she expected Mrs. Clinton to run for president and that her political background made her a “budding Leninist” who understood the concept of acquiring, accumulating and maintaining political power at any cost. In the same vein, she is determined to destroy the Republicans at any cost. Joe Biden has to understand this side of Hillary. It may be one reason why he is reluctant to jump into the presidential race against her. With a history of plagiarism and embarrassing off-the-cuff remarks, Biden could be torn apart.

Hillary Clinton has the blood of four Americans on her hands over her handling of Benghazi. Yet, she compares Republicans to terrorists? And the RNC responds by asking for an apology? This is almost comical.

Trump doesn’t ask for apologies. He fires back any way he can. That’s why, despite questions about his ideology and even religious views, he strikes a chord. The American people have watched their country being destroyed from within for seven years and they are tired of politicians responding with hearings, investigations and requests for apologies. They can’t figure out why Obama hasn’t been impeached by now. They want someone to tell it like it is about the deterioration of our nation and those responsible for its demise.

What Trump has done, on so many occasions it is difficult to count, is to finger the media for their role in the destruction of America. Can you believe he actually accuses liberal reporters of being dishonest? He actually mocks and ridicules them to their faces.

Univision deserves scorn. It is a “news” organization that openly targets Trump and he has the guts to counterattack when one of Univision’s hired guns shows up at a Trump news conference for the purpose of making a spectacle of himself and trying to embarrass Trump. “Go back to Univision” is precisely the comment that Ramos deserved. If anything, one can argue that Trump was too nice for inviting the advocacy journalist back to the press conference.

The Los Angeles Times calls Ramos “the Spanish-language Walter Cronkite,” and suggests that the confrontation could somehow “prove dangerous for Trump, who thus far been something of a Teflon candidate.” This is the obligatory reference to how Trump has opened himself up to the charge of racism for putting the obnoxious Ramos in his place. Later in the article, we read that Ramos’s daughter is working for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign, but Ramos “has said her job doesn’t affect his work.” Sure. Now we have another example of why Trump calls the media dishonest.

As for the comparison with Cronkite, the long-time CBS Evening News anchorman was as much of a fraud as Ramos. Cronkite undermined the war against communism in Vietnam and used his newscast as a soapbox to argue against President Reagan’s military buildup to counter the Soviets. Cronkite’s FBI file showed he was a dupe of the Soviet intelligence services, who could be counted on to promote Soviet objectives. After he retired, he showed up at a World Federalist meeting to accept an award and endorse world government through the United Nations. Hillary was there via videotape to thank him.

Ramos should ask for an apology from the Los Angeles Times for being compared to Walter Cronkite. I’m joking, of course. They are both disgraces to the journalism profession.

07/12/15

Maybe Kevin D. Williamson Should be Writing for Politico

Doug Ross @ Journal

UnsavoryAgents

The usually brilliant and stalwart Kevin D. Williamson of National Review appears at last to have fallen victim to the virus known as Beltway Insider-itis. In doing so, he joins the likes of David Brooks and Jen Rubin, so-called “conservatives” who act as the unofficial PR wing of the Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove, and the Republican National Committee.

We fully expect the Left to tar Constitutional Conservatives and Tea Party activists as racists (no matter their love and support of Allen West, Ben Carson, Tim Scott, Ted Cruz, Israel, et. al.); most recently the progressive sissy-boy (which is the term he prefers, I hear) Damon Linker of The Week labeled the conservative base a bunch of Birchers who hate, among others, “negroes, elites, decadent city folk, Catholics [and] Jews”.

We do not expect the likes of Williamson, however, to channel Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Karl Rove and Tom Donohue and slam the very group of Americans who handed the Republican Party massive midterm wins at every level of government in 2010 and 2014.

Thus, it was with great surprise that I read Williamson’s latest (“WHINOS: On the Martyrdom of the Holy, Holy Base“), a full-throated attack on you and I, who he terms “WHINOS”.

Never mind the Democrats, economic realities, Putin, ISIS, the geographical facts of the U.S.-Mexico border — all would be well and all manner of things would be well if not for the behind-the-scenes plotting of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and their enablers, who apparently can be bribed with small numbers of cocktail weenies. The WHINO is a Republican conspiracy theorist, in whose fervid imaginings all the players — victims, villains — are Republicans.

Why the vitriol (and patently false vitriol at that)?

Williamson, like many Beltway insiders, has panicked at the latest polls showing Donald Trump (no, not Donald Trump!) atop the current GOP field.

Recall, however, that at this same moment in the prior election cycle, Rudy Giuliani sat in Trump’s position.

Williamson also insists Romney was a wonderful candidate and anyone who couldn’t see the difference between the former Massachusetts governor and Obama was either a “fanatic or extraordinarily ill-informed”. Or perhaps nominating the Godfather of Obamacare made the dominant policy issue of 2012 a moot point?

And why do I call Williamson’s insipid arguments patently false?

He need look no further than his own website to read the sobering wisdom of Andrew C. McCarthy (“Republicans Have Needlessly Undermined their Ability to Resist the Iran Deal”), which effectively shreds every last molecule of Williamson’s diatribe.

In fact, on the most important national security question in possibly all of American history, the Obama-Kerry nuclear Iran agreement (McCarthy terms it “a disastrous deal that would end sanctions against the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism while paving its way to a nuclear-weapons arsenal”), John Boehner and Mitch McConnell conspired with Barack Obama to simply cede Congressional oversight of a deal that will reward Iran with $150 billion and allow it (easily) to build nuclear weapons.

That legislation … enacted as the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, shifts the burden of persuasion away from President Obama and onto opponents of the Iran deal, thus making the deal virtually impossible to stop or undo…

…Iran, of course, is not just an accused party; it is an incorrigible recidivist. In overt contempt for our nation and president, Tehran is already in flagrant violation of the “Joint Plan of Action” it agreed to with the administration. The mullahs see that, even as they systematically flout this interim deal, Obama is hell-bent on looking the other way. It is therefore certain that they will violate the final deal — which will be so frontloaded with carrots (e.g., a $150 billion signing bonus in the form of immediate sanctions relief) that the sticks can be laughed off…

…Under the Constitution, the president must persuade a two-thirds supermajority of senators to approve an agreement with a foreign power. That is, as I’ve repeatedly contended in connection with the Iran negotiations, the Constitution’s presumption is against legally binding international pacts…

…Under the Constitution’s burden of persuasion, then, the Iran deal did not have a prayer of becoming law … In the final Iran deal, the burden of persuasion is key. Enter the Corker legislation. It undermined the Constitution’s presumption against international agreements by shifting the burden of persuasion: Rather than forcing the president to persuade two-thirds of the Senate to approve the deal, it imposes on opponents the burden of persuading two-thirds of the full Congress to reject it.

In other words, the Corker bill (and, remember, Bob Corker is simply a puppet of Mitch McConnell in this and many other matters) surrendered full control of the most dangerous deal imaginable — handing cash and nuclear weapons to a terror state whose unofficial slogan is “Death to America” — to Barack Hussein Obama.

I don’t know whether McCarthy wrote his piece as a direct assault on Williamson, but suffice it to say that it appears purpose-built.

Williamson must also ignore the fact that, in order to get elected, men like Boehner and McConnell pledged fiscal responsibility, a full repeal of Obamacare, and investigations of Barack Obama’s high crimes and misdemeanors.

In fact, a Republican Congress has aided and abetted the most massive expansion of government since World War II; an act of fiscal irresponsibility so unhinged and detrimental to society that Mark Levin’s new book on the topic (Plunder and Deceit) is already a #1 bestseller weeks before it hits the shelves.

In fact, a Republican Congress has done nothing of import to repeal the disastrous Obamacare law, even as the Supreme Court and the Department of Health and Human Services rewrites it at will.

In fact, a Republican Congress has failed to name a Select Committee to investigate the weaponization of the IRS (the mere suggestion of which was outlined in Richard Nixon’s prospective articles of impeachment); it has permitted Hillary Clinton to destroy her government records that were under subpoena with virtually no repercussions; and it has failed to diligently pursue any one of dozens of other scandals (e.g., Fast and Furious, Solyndra, the UAW bailout, the violation of the War Powers Act, etc.) that should be front and center every single day.

Is it any wonder that the conservative base is frothing at the mouth?

Williamson concludes with the pithy phrase “[w]hining is no substitute for winning”; unfortunately his beloved Establishment has done very little winning, whether in general elections or on the most important policy questions of the day.

In order to win, Kevin, you have to fight.

Feckless, cowardly boobs like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell have surrendered at every opportunity without even considering a fight, insisting before the battle is even joined, for instance, that they’ll never shut down the government.

The American people need a Presidential candidate who will fight. Whether that man is Donald Trump or, more realistically, someone like Ted Cruz, Americans want a candidate who will not hesitate to face our enemies, whether they be foreign or domestic.

03/11/15

Why was Sid Blumenthal advising Hillary Clinton on Libya?

By: Kenneth R. Timmerman
Accuracy in Media

Exclusive to Accuracy in Media

Until Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) revealed last week that his Benghazi Select Committee was investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server for her official State Department communications, no one had a good explanation for why none of the Congressional committees that had previously investigated Benghazi had ever cited a single Hillary Clinton email in their reports.

Congressional Democrats had been pooh-poohing Gowdy’s investigation, claiming that all the important questions about Benghazi had been “asked and answered” by previous committees.

Now the best that Gowdy’s counterpart, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), can do is object to subpoenas (especially when they are issued to Hillary Clinton in person, through Counsel), and to huff and puff about the investigation becoming a “surrogate” for the “Republican National Committee.”

What a change a single revelation can bring.

We now learn that Hillary Clinton not only used a private server, maintained at her Chappaqua, New York home for official communications, but that she never used a government email at all. Not once.

No [email protected], or [email protected] or anything of the kind. Just multiple accounts on her family server, clintonemail.com, including [email protected], the same address used by former Clinton White House aide Sidney Blumenthal to communicate with her on Benghazi and related matters.

Federal prosecutors recently finished up their case against former CIA Director David Petraeus, who was conveniently forced to resign just three days after the November 2012 elections, before he could clarify what he knew about Benghazi. (Given that Petraeus had just returned from a September 2, 2012 trip to Ankara, Turkey, where he had been trying to tamp down publicity due to an arms shipment from Benghazi to the Syrian rebels, he certainly knew a lot.)

In a widely criticized decision, they forced him to plea bargain one count of a misdemeanor in exchange for dropping more serious charges. The full extent of the FBI’s case against Petraeus involved him sharing personal, hand-written notebooks with his biographer.

Prosecutors noted that the CIA had installed a SCIF—a specialized high-security area—in his Arlington, Virginia home where he could safely store classified materials brought home from the CIA. That facility was dismantled by the CIA without incident two months after Petraeus resigned from the Agency.

The prosecutors never accused Petraeus of improperly storing U.S. government classified materials either in the SCIF or elsewhere. Nor did they accuse him of sending classified materials over an unsecure server.

If they could prosecute Petraeus on one count of improperly handling classified material (he kept those personal notebooks in a rucksack in his attic), one can only speculate how many thousand counts of mishandling classified information could be brought against Mrs. Clinton. Of course, she denies having sent classified information over her personal server, but in that case how did she communicate on classified matters with her envoys and subordinates?

Was the private server at her residence designed, installed, and maintained by a U.S. government security agency? Was it connected to the government’s Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) and physically separated from the open Internet?

The Sid Blumenthal memos, sent from his AOL account to Hillary’s private email server, suggest that this was not the case. If so, the former Secretary of State was breaking the law—big time.

When the memos first surfaced in 2013—posted to the Internet by a Romanian hacker known as “Guccifer” —neither the State Department nor their purported author acknowledged their authenticity. Given that they initially surfaced on the website of Russia Today, Vladimir Putin’s reliably anti-American TV network, that was enough to consign them to oblivion as yet another Internet hoax.

Now we learn that former CIA official Tyler Drumheller apparently helped to gather the “intel” that Blumenthal sent to Hillary on the Benghazi attacks and other political developments inside Libya.

This is extremely significant because the initial memo sent by Blumenthal, dated September 12, 2012, cites “a sensitive source,” who purportedly met with Libyan President Magarief shortly after the attacks began and claimed that a YouTube video sparked the “protest” against the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi.

Magarief himself never said such a thing, although the memo is worded to suggest that he did. He blew up when he heard Susan Rice make that claim on the Sunday talk shows after the attack, as I write on pages 347 and 348 of Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Benghazi.

Drumheller became infamous for several earlier pieces of disinformation. As European Division chief at the CIA’s Directorate of Operations in 2001 and 2002, he was the one who planted the phony evidence about the Niger uranium contract that was later used by the media during the Valerie Plame affair to claim that George W. Bush had “lied” about Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs. On three separate occasions, he passed the Niger information up the food chain as validated intelligence, when the CIA had been warned that it was not (see page 63 of my book Shadow Warriors).

Then-CIA Director George Tenet was so fed up with Drumheller that he spent seven full pages in his memoir debunking claims by Drumheller regarding the defector known as CURVEBALL that Tenet said were simply untrue.

Drumheller and Sid Blumenthal have a history together. In 2007, Blumenthal used Drumheller as a source to “prove” that Bush had “lied” about pre-war intelligence on Iraqi WMD. Drumheller and Blumenthal went on to work in Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2007 and 2008.

So was the Guccifer/Blumenthal memo intended as disinformation, written after Hillary Clinton put out her statement on the night of the attacks blaming them on a YouTube video? Or was it actually the source of Hillary’s false claim about the video, written and sent by someone on the ground in Libya who was attempting to plant the story?

Many reporters, myself included, have submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to the State Department, asking for all documents and communications that would show how Mrs. Clinton’s statement came to be worded as it was finally released. Where are all the drafts? Who commented on them? What did it say initially? How was it changed? By whom?

We have much of that information for the Susan Rice talking points, but nothing at all for Hillary Clinton’s statement on the evening of the attacks.

Given that there is not a single mention of a protest or the YouTube video in all the documents released to Congress, which included real-time communications from Tripoli and Benghazi from the State Department and CIA that night, exactly how Mrs. Clinton came up with that idea could provide key insight into what actually happened in Benghazi, and why.